Home Canning and Food Preservation for Food Security
Home canning and food preservation help households build food security by extending the life of seasonal foods, reducing dependence on the commercial food supply and creating a pantry filled with ingredients and ready-to-eat meals. Skills such as pressure canning, water bath canning, dehydrating, freeze drying and seed saving allow families to preserve food when it is abundant and use it throughout the year.
Food security, however, involves more than storing a large quantity of food. It requires knowing how to grow, preserve, store and prepare foods your household will actually eat. A well-rounded pantry combines preserved proteins, vegetables, fruits, grains, dried foods and complete meals with the knowledge needed to replenish those foods over time.
(I sometimes use affiliate links in my content. This will not cost you anything but it helps me offset my costs to keep creating new canning recipes. Thank you for your support.)
By Diane Devereaux | The Canning Diva®
Last updated: September 29, 2026
Building Food Security Through Practical Skills
I recently joined Sara F. Hathaway on the Changing Earth Podcast to talk about home canning, food preservation and the traditional skills that help households become more self-reliant.
Our conversation covered much more than filling shelves with Mason jars. We talked about pressure canning meats and complete meals, seed saving, gardening, soil health, food preservation for pets and ways families can prepare for disruptions without believing they need acres of land or an enormous stockpile of supplies.
One of the most important parts of food preparedness is developing skills you can use repeatedly.
Buying emergency food can provide a temporary reserve. Learning how to preserve food gives you the ability to continually rebuild that reserve. When tomatoes are abundant, you can preserve them. When meat goes on sale, you can pressure can it. When the garden produces more than you can eat, you can preserve the harvest instead of allowing it to go to waste.
Over time, those individual actions create something much larger: a working pantry.
Moving Beyond the Fear of Home Canning
Sara and I also discussed one of the biggest obstacles I encounter as a food preservation educator: fear.
Pressure canning in particular intimidates many people when they first begin. Meat canning often creates even more hesitation. Yet understanding how the process works changes the experience completely.
Rather than memorizing instructions without understanding them, I encourage people to learn the principles behind food preservation. Knowing why pressure matters, why processing times differ and how heat penetrates food gives you the knowledge to recognize what is happening inside the canner.
Education replaces uncertainty with confidence.
That confidence also makes it easier to move beyond preserving individual ingredients and begin creating complete meals in a jar. Soups, stews, meats, beans and other pantry staples can become part of an everyday food system rather than something reserved exclusively for emergencies.
Food Preservation as Part of Everyday Life
Preparedness works best when the foods stored for an emergency are already part of your normal life.
A pantry filled with foods no one enjoys eating has limited value. A pantry filled with familiar ingredients and meals gives you options whether you experience a power outage, temporary financial hardship, a disruption in the food supply or simply a busy evening when you need dinner quickly.
This is why I have always approached food preservation as a practical household skill rather than something rooted solely in emergency preparedness.
Home canning, dehydrating, freeze drying, gardening and seed saving all contribute to the same goal: giving you greater control over how food reaches your table.
During my conversation with Sara, we explored these ideas and many more, including some of the lessons I have learned throughout my years as The Canning Diva®.
Listen to our complete conversation below.
Tune in a watch here:
About the Author:
Diane Devereaux, The Canning Diva®, is an internationally recognized food preservation expert, author, and educator with over 30 years of home canning experience. She’s the author of multiple top-selling canning books and teaches workshops across the U.S. Learn more at TheCanningDiva.com.